Mayo Clinic, ASU Form Research and Development Collaboration

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Media Contacts:
Anne Tewksbury
Mayo Clinic
480-301-4368 or
Nancy Neff
Arizona State University
480-965-4836

For Immediate Release – July 10, 2003

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University (ASU) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding bringing together clinical and investigative interests and strengths in a collaborative framework for medical research and development.

Mayo Clinic has extensive clinical experience and expertise, as well as vertically integrated programs spanning basic science, laboratory-based clinical investigation, clinical trials and population sciences. ASU, through the Arizona Biodesign Institute, has outstanding multidisciplinary research programs in biologics and pharmaceuticals, nanoscale biosystems and devices, neural interface and rehabilitation therapies, and genomics and bioinformatics.

While the specific research areas will continue to be identified by researchers at both institutions, the initial areas of potential collaboration include:

• Neuroimaging
• Receptor Biology
• Microdevices (both on-body and in-body)
• Vaccine Development

"At Mayo Clinic, medical research is done with the goal of improving patient care," said Laurence J. Miller, M.D., chair of Research and chair of the Cancer Center at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. "There is immense potential value to our patients, and patients everywhere, in bringing the skills, experience, creativity and commitment of the high quality scientists at ASU and Mayo Clinic together to develop mutually beneficial scientific advances."

George Poste, director of the Arizona Biodesign Institute, ASU's path-breaking biodesign and biotechnology enterprise, said, "This collaboration between ASU and Mayo Clinic offers significant opportunities to harness knowledge and produce dramatic gains in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases and address major unmet medical needs, both nationally and internationally."

Research at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale includes basic science research at the Samuel C. Johnson Research Building as well as clinical and translational research activities in the Clinical Studies Units at Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Hospital. Currently, there are more than 200 ongoing active clinical trials underway.

Arizona Technology Enterprises and Mayo Medical Ventures will work in partnership to bring technologies developed through this collaboration to the market place.

Mayo Medical Ventures is responsible for patenting and licensing Mayo technology and transforming discoveries into products and services that the medical industry can use to improve patient care. Revenue from these activities is used to support Mayo programs in medical education and scientific research. Peter Slate, CEO of Arizona Technology Enterprises, which is a new entity established through the ASU Foundation to serve as ASU's technology commercialization enterprise, said, "The product and business development resources of Mayo Medical Ventures and Arizona Technology enterprises together provide a solid framework for ASU and Mayo Clinic to foster strong partnerships with the private sector around core technology strengths."

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 66 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 205-bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the Clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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